Updated 7:15 p.m.
More than 23,000 Virginia utility customers were without power on Monday morning, including about 15,000 in Southwest Virginia’s Washington and Smyth counties, as an Arctic cold front blows in some of coldest temperatures of the 21st century to date over an inches-deep icy white shell covering most of the commonwealth.
While a vast majority of the commonwealth missed out on the freezing rain that has left a wrecked landscape of fallen trees and hundreds of thousands without power across many Southern states, a couple of small slivers outside the deepest cold air banked against the Appalachians did experience significant freezing rain following early snow and sleet.
As of 9:30 a.m. Monday, according to utility data aggregator poweroutage.us, about 9,500 utility customers in Washington County and 5,500 in Smyth County remained without electricity, the result of ice over 1/2 inch thick pulling down power lines and toppling trees and limbs onto them. About 500 were without power in neighboring Grayson County, with the bulk of the rest of the state’s power outages in a sliver of counties between Richmond and Hampton Roads that also experienced significant freezing rain.
The rest of Virginia between these areas and northward saw primarily snow and sleet, accumulating 2 to 8 inches in many locations, with minimal freezing rain. Travel is treacherous and many schools, colleges and other institutions closed on Monday, some unlikely to reopen for days.
By early evening Monday, about half of those customers had had their power restored as crews braved bitter winds and slick roads. Washington County still had about 5,500 without power and Smyth County almost 3,000. A new cluster of nearly 1,000 customers without power had popped up in Franklin County, possibly related to gusty winds..
Gov. Abigail Spanberger, in a video update on the state’s response to the winter storm, thanked Virginians for staying off roads as snow and ice clearing and power restoration continues. The weekend traffic volume on Virginia’s interstates was more than 80 percent lower than average. Virginians should continue to follow state agency recommendations to stay safe this week, Spanberger said, as secondary roadways remain icy and extremely cold temperatures are expected across the commonwealth.
Despite warming aloft that changed snow to sleet quickly from south to north overnight Saturday into early Sunday, the cold air proved too thick to further allow a change from sleet to freezing rain over most of Virginia until some central and southern Virginia saw a little bit as the storm waned late Sunday afternoon and evening.
The far southeast and southwest corners of Virginia warmed above freezing after early wintry precipitation. In between where it warmed above freezing and where it stayed mostly snow and sleet, freezing rain occurred for many hours with temperatures staying below freezing.
Any snow, sleet and glaze ice that has accumulated will be slow to melt, as extremely cold temperatures are spreading into Virginia and likely to stay for days.
Lows on Tuesday morning may dip below zero over some of the state’s western areas with single-digits likely in much of the rest of the state. Some locations may see temperatures rivaling those of the Christmas Eve 2022 or late February 2015 Arctic outbreaks, or possibly have the coldest temperatures since the late 20th century.
A reinforcing shot of Arctic air will continue very cold low temperatures and sub-freezing high temperatures over a large part of Virginia through the remainder of the week and over the coming weekend.
There is some potential for wintry precipitation by the coming weekend, though it’s too early for details of amounts or even whether the system will come to fruition at all for Virginia.
Journalist Kevin Myatt has been writing about weather for 20 years. His weekly column, appearing on Wednesdays, is sponsored by Oakey’s, a family-run, locally-owned funeral home with locations throughout the Roanoke Valley.
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